There’s a certain kind of eyewear that announces itself loudly — the oversized logo, the instantly recognizable silhouette, the price tag that pays for a fashion conglomerate’s marketing budget. And then there’s Cutler and Gross.
The British brand doesn’t advertise much. Its frames don’t carry names — only numbers, starting at 101, genderless from the beginning. And yet, for over five decades, the people who know eyewear have known Cutler and Gross. When Daniel Craig picks up his sunglasses as Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion and again in Wake Up Dead Man, they’re C&G. When Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender needed frames for Black Bag last year, they reached for C&G. Elton John has worn them for decades. So has Kate Moss, Grace Jones, and Manolo Blahnik.
We carry Cutler and Gross at City Optix because it’s exactly the kind of eyewear we believe in: made by hand, built to last, and designed by people who genuinely love what they make.
Fifty-Five Years of Making It Right
Graham Cutler and Tony Gross opened their first shop at 16 Knightsbridge Green, London, in 1971. They were trained ophthalmic opticians who’d met at college in the early 1960s — Cutler the precision craftsman, Gross the one who’d previously sourced vintage frames for rock musicians and brought a Surrealist’s eye to everything he touched.
The first store occupied what had been a wigmaker’s space. A single framemaker, George Smith, worked in a workshop directly above the shop, hand-cutting each frame from acetate sheet using a jigsaw and hand-drawn templates. His wife Franny hand-tinted lenses. Clients gathered for coffee, cigarettes, and conversation. The whole thing operated more like a private club than a shop.
What they built over the following decades — entirely on word of mouth — became something the eyewear industry rarely produces: a genuinely independent house with its own factory, its own archive, and an unbroken design philosophy. A pair of their bright red frames from the late 1970s now sits in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection.
In 2008, when every other brand was outsourcing production to cut costs, Cutler and Gross did the opposite: they acquired a failing factory in Domegge di Cadore in Italy’s Veneto region, the historic heartland of Italian eyewear craft, and brought manufacturing fully in-house. “Everyone thought we were mad to go against the trend,” their CEO said at the time. They weren’t wrong to do it.
How the Frames Are Made
Every Cutler and Gross acetate frame takes 42 steps and approximately 12 weeks from raw material to finished product. The acetate comes from Mazzucchelli — Italy’s premier cellulose acetate producer, plant-derived from cotton — in custom thicknesses that C&G commissions specifically for their designs.
The process includes 96 hours of barrel tumbling across four stages — fibreglass chips, beechwood, and polishing creams — followed by four rounds of hand-polishing on progressively finer wheels. The hinges are proprietary: either sunken directly into the acetate or riveted by hand, each requiring a precision that, as the brand describes it, “is a very exact science — too much force ripples the acetate; too little leaves a gap.” The logo is gold foil, laser-cut from metal, hand-placed, and sealed flush with resin.
Their titanium collection — launched late last year and named for the London streets near the original 1971 shop — is made in Sabae, Japan, through a 300-step process that takes eight months per frame. The Knightsbridge 1971 style in that collection is individually numbered. There are 350 of them in the world.
This is what “luxury” actually means when it isn’t being used as a marketing word.
What’s in the Collection Now
Knightsbridge Green Titanium (2025 launch) — Five limited styles handcrafted in Japan. Ultra-lightweight, hypoallergenic, with proprietary inner hinges and Art Deco details. The Cranley 1425 is a navigator sunglass with ZEISS lenses; the Lansdowne 1431 optical has a nose bridge modelled on the grille of a 1960s Aston Martin.
Classic acetate — The brand’s heartland. Deep tortoiseshells, block-color frames, D-shapes with keyhole bridges, and oversize silhouettes. The 1390 round frame has been an archive staple for decades. The 9126 oversized cat-eye — recently worn by Nicole Ari Parker in And Just Like That — is one of the most striking shapes in luxury eyewear right now.
The Graham Cutler Collection — A capsule of four styles drawn directly from the co-founder’s personal 2003 archive. Minimal round and rectangle shapes in the purest expression of the house aesthetic.
The Aurum Collection — Wire frames in Swiss stainless steel plated in 18-karat rhodium, rose gold, or 24-karat yellow gold. The gold-plating is done by Italian jewellery makers in the Dolomites who have been doing this work for over a century.
All styles are numbered, not named. All are genderless. All are made by people who have been doing this specific work for a very long time.
Why These Frames Work in San Francisco
The Marina District is a neighborhood that values things that are genuinely well made. The clientele here understands the difference between a brand that licenses its name to a manufacturer in bulk and a brand that owns its factory and controls every step of production. That distinction matters a great deal with eyewear — frames you wear on your face every day, adjusted to your prescription, for years.
Cutler and Gross frames are designed to be adjusted, repaired, and worn for a decade. The acetate deepens in color over time. The hinges can be resprung. When you find a pair that works, you keep them.
There’s also the practical consideration: C&G is now distributed across North America through Europa Eyewear’s new Independent Luxury Division, which means support and availability have never been better for boutique optometrists who carry the line.
And then there’s the less practical but equally real reason: these are just remarkable-looking frames. The design archive stretches back 55 years. Every silhouette has been refined across multiple generations. When you put them on, you can feel the difference.
Come See Them
We have a current selection of Cutler and Gross optical frames and sunglasses at City Optix on Chestnut Street in San Francisco’s Marina District. If you’d like to try a specific style or have questions about what might work for your prescription needs, we’re happy to help.
Book an appointment or stop by — we’re open seven days a week.
City Optix is an independent optometry practice on Chestnut Street in San Francisco’s Marina District, carrying a curated selection of luxury and independent eyewear brands alongside comprehensive eye care services.